Word: byrds
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...national television into a showcase for Lieut. Colonel Oliver North. Inouye's standing slipped further in January, when he was found to have sponsored an unnoticed proposal to give $8 million to build schools for North African Jews in France. Even without these setbacks, Inouye may be too Byrd-like for younger members. "Inouye is the direction you go in if you really want to play it safe, not rock the boat," says Norman Ornstein, resident Scholar of the American Enterprise Institute...
This will be the second try at the majority-leader post for Johnston. Elected to the Senate in 1972, Johnston, 55, made an aborted run against Byrd in 1986, when Democrats recaptured the Senate majority they had lost six years earlier. Johnston dropped out of the contest when he realized the awful truth: thanks to a secret ballot, Senators may pledge their troth in advance to more than one candidate. "I thought I had the votes earlier on," he recalls. "But they go like a covey of quail, all flying off in one direction. I saw the first one take...
...anything can happen in a race that has less in common with grown-up politics than a contest for student-council president, where the best leader can easily lose to the candidate who can organize the best mixers and loosen up hall passes. A former Senate aide points to Byrd's upset victory over the charismatic but inattentive Edward Kennedy for Democratic whip in 1971. Democrats talk national leadership, says the onetime aide, but they vote self-interest. "They want someone to manage their lives, make them look good," he says, "especially the ones with complicated social lives...
...this time around is as elaborately courteous as the whim-conscious Byrd, famous for sending cars for colleagues who need to get someplace in a hurry. A longtime Byrd supporter said, "If you took a pencil out, he'd sharpen it for you." Inouye is said to have the best shot at Byrd's endorsement if he can show enough solid early support, a rare commodity in a secret ballot, where Senators have been known to make up their minds early, but often...
Whatever the result, this race could hardly be as dramatic as the 1971 contest, which set up Byrd's accession to majority leader six years later. The weekend before the vote, Kennedy relaxed over dinner, telling friends he had the job wrapped up. Meanwhile, Byrd was feverishly collecting chits, and believed he had a one-vote margin as long as he could count on the proxy of Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who was near death in a Washington hospital. On the day of the vote, aides gave Byrd the signal that Russell was still alive and his proxy good...